Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

The Roads Policing Unit need to get out of their cars.

They need to get on bikes, buses, trucks (as done by their peers around the world) which all give a birds eye view of drivers using their phones in particular.

Take the Clonmel case, you might assume or might hear that car must have been travelling to flip, but being intimately familiar with the location (I wore the leather heels of my father's shoes 31 years ago walking up and down that road in the night of my debs 😄 and have cycled up and down it probably hundreds of times) there is structures at locus which could facilitate a car overturning at low speeds.

In relation to tyre issues in any case, who establishes that fact? Garda PSV inspector issues report before any court hearing? Does any part have a right of reply or can they get their own motor Engineer to inspect and report?

What if there is an issue with poor road drainage? What if a private property is discharging water onto road? All that would need investigation and a fair forum to decide on responsibility/liability with a right to appeal.

A rush to publish prejudices any such rights to fair procedure.

We know bald tyres are dangerous. We know driving in downpours is Hugh risk. We know young drivers are a problem. We know seat belts work. We know that people drive too fast in housing estates, schools where there are young kids.

There are endless previous fatal accidents which could be used in any add campaigns for road safety without interfering in due process for current tragedies.

Needs more yellow 'walkers on road' signs

Caught the tail end of a "Road Safety" segment on the BOC show on Radio One yesterday, not sure who it was but they were talking about the recent deaths on our roads and one of the guests went off on one about escooters and ebike users and how they've "no regard" for the law and they "can do what they like", obviously this went unchallenged.

I live in the countryside, where there are no footpaths outside houses, the nearest village (1 pub and 1 tiny village shop) is 2km away and the nearest town (3 pubs, 2 petrol stations, a chipper, centra, butchers, chemist etc) is 5km away. About 500 metres of footpath if I was to walk to the nearest shop in the town. We've gotten to the point, with evolution of cars in terms of size and speed, an increased number of cars as society becomes wealthier, and negligent town planning in terms of lack of alternative transport, local amenities etc., where the only way to exist outside urban centres is to have a car. It's a vicious circle too - the worse the facilities, the more people need cars, the more people use cars, the less people walk or cycle, the emptier the roads are to non-drivers, the less the chance of coming across a walker/ cyclist, the faster people drive, the faster people expect to be allowed to drive, the more intolerant people become of having to slow for walkers/ cyclists, the more hostile the environment for walkers/ cyclists, the less people walk/ cycle, the emptier the roads, the faster the speeds and on and on and on.

Take the 80kmph speed limit on most country roads - it's far too high in most cases. From experience, 60kmph feels a much more natural speed to travel those roads. There's much less need to brake and accelerate into/ out of corners. Less need to hug the ditches. Less chance of being surprised by another road user. It's the country - should we not expect to have people walking to/ from their houses? Children about? Dogs/ cats crossing roads? People on horses, tractors cutting verges, entering/ leaving fields?

Where is this need to push speeds to the limit coming from and why are local authorities enabling it by sticking an 80kmph sign on the road? Bearing also in mind that I'm judging this by my car's speedometer, and have been informed on this very forum that if I want to do 80lmph I should really be pointing the needle at 86kmph or thereabouts.

I think it'll take action by the govt. along the lines of the plastic bag levy/ smoking ban - cut the speed limits on minor roads, hammer home the message through public information campaigns and properly monitor and enforce the limits.

Yeah, I used the term 'local authority' as a lazy way of saying whoever has the power almighty vested in them.

It's not just young lads in Audis either (although driver aggression is probably another factor). My mother is in her 70s... she drives like a lunatic (even while worrying about me cycling and getting killed on the road). The level of detachment with which people view speed and car use is probably off the scale if there was a way of studying and measuring it.

The 80km/hr speed limit in most cases is just the default for a road that doesn't have M or N status. It basically means "it's 80km/hr here because no-one could be bothered putting a speed limit on it". There was talk a few years ago of doing a national review and actually setting more appropriate speed limits (some were actually too low like former N roads which had been re-designated R due to motorway bypass). I think they may have done a few R roads but not bothered with L roads.

They did do it once, as the old mph limit was 60, which was 100kph, which I think reduced with the introduction kph. Simplist would default a reduction in a similar way and then have councils go through a process to increase them. If they wanted to go further they could default L roads lower, than R roads.

I still think it's really about enforcement. However often (and this isn't commenting on specific incidents) weather and/ or light conditions are reported as potential cause - isn't that really a way of saying inappropriate speed, without putting inappropriate speed in the minds of the public?

This was always one of my favourites (just outside Ballyhale - 2009 footage as somebody turned the 80km/h sign around in the latest) To think Kilkenny CoCo went to the bother and expense of putting up that sign (admittedly the road it's coming off was the old N9 with 100km/h limit at the time - again inappropriate for long stretches of the route)

Are those suggesting speed limits be applied to cyclists happy to consider reviewing the speed limits as a whole and applying new limits based on road type and 'vehicle' type. I'd prefer to be hit by a cyclist at 30kmph than a small car at 20kmph.

Of course they're not. They're crusading against those pesky cyclists looking to ruin the world with their free-wheeling antics. Not even wearing hi-viz Joe!!

Some epic examples down in Connemara of this phenomenon:

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2434388,-9.7089789,3a,75y,243.23h,66.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sI_5pXh2UXmVOV5WGLdpnig!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

Here the boreen is 80kmh, and the "main road" is 50kmh.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2412948,-9.7331279,3a,75y,117.38h,81.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s20KyHGYjBDy53qdn67_quQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

Similar stuff here. The 50 limit can be seen on the reverse of the speed limit sign.

I bet I could do 80 up that road...